Review: ‘Predators’

Last seen battling a rival franchise’s beasties in the energetically silly “Alien vs. Predator” and its sequel (in which they were the good guys, sorta), those Rastafarian-coiffed killer space aliens are back in “Predators.” Robert Rodriguez-produced pic puts a bulked-up Adrien Brody in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s erstwhile shoes, to clamorous if uninvolving results. Nonetheless, dudes looking for some basic splattery action while their girlfriends are off seeing “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” (again) should give this a muscular B.O. sendoff, even if legs may be longer in ancillary.

Script by Alex Litvak and Michael Finch bears more resemblance to the superior 1987 original, “Predator,” than to its intervening sequels, at least in the early going. Replacing that film’s commando unit is a motley crew of militaristic or just plain violent types plucked from around the globe. Each one experiences a flash of light, then awakens mid-freefall from an airplane, plummeting into an unknown jungle with whatever weapons he or she was already carrying.

These testy strangers (fortunately all English speakers) uneasily band together for survival against various perils, the initial ones being booby traps and an attack by spike-covered boar-like creatures. Once they arrive at a clearing and can see the sky, there’s another unpleasant surprise: They’re not on Earth. It’s at this point Royce deduces, “This planet is a game preserve and we are the game.”

Indeed, they are being hunted by the “predators” of prior pics, with their invisibility shields and solarized point-of-view shots. The group’s ranks steadily thin as they attempt to escape, then hunt the hunters, eventually meeting up with a lone human survivor (Laurence Fishburne, laying it on thick) of several hunting seasons.

Directed by Nimrod Antal (of the impressive Hungarian “Kontroll” as well as Hollywood suspensers “Vacancy” and “Armored”), “Predators” serves up its parade of frantic chases, explosions and slugfests with brute-force competence. But it’s also somewhat monotonous, with action pausing only for clunky dialogue, some icky moments but no memorable thrills, and a fadeout that provides the characters (and viewers) little reward for their toil.

There’s also the problem of the predators themselves. Original pic smartly kept them a mostly unseen menace; once they make themselves known here, there’s far too much time (especially during a couple of mano-a-mano fight scenes) in which to ponder how they resemble tricked-up 1950s monsters such as the Creature From the Black Lagoon, the Gill-Man, et al.

Perfs are adequate in a movie lacking much use for better ones, though Brody disappoints by using the stock sotto voce rasp of the uber-macho action hero who really, really means business. Design elements are solid, Gyula Pados’s lensing making good use of locations in Hawaii, Texas and California. John Debney’s score offers standard bombast.

Predators

Production

A 20th Century Fox release of a Troublemaker Studios/Davis Entertainment Co. production in association with Dune Entertainment. Produced by Robert Rodriguez, John Davis, Elizabeth Avellan. Executive producer, Alex Young. Co-producer, Bill Scott. Directed by Nimrod Antal. Screenplay, Alex Litvak, Michael Finch, based on characters created by Jim Thomas, John Thomas.